As near as I can tell...

This was how the Jets kick coverage team lined up:
The New York Jets ran a stacked kickoff, with their safeties and gunners hidden behind their wedge busters and contain players. Washington, Nugent, and Coleman are the safeties. Bowens (!) and McCareins are outside contain. Kassell and Spencer are the wedge busters, Smith and Wright are the gunners, and Harris and Tutt are inside contain.



The stacked kickoff is designed primarily to get the gunners downfield quickly, protecting them from frontline blocks by running them in the same lanes as the wedge busters. The wedge busters are supposed to get them into the wedge, where the gunners either tackle the returner or force him wide into the contain players. Inside contain players generally aim for just outside the wedge, pending any returner shenanigans. Outside contain is supposed to constrict the field of play and protect the sideline alleys. Safeties trail the coverage wave at 10-15 yards in a cover 3 look. Gunners and inside contain make the majority of tackles in this scheme.

Now the Pats:
Note: On Hobbs' touchdown return, Le Kevin Smith was in for Kyle Brady, who was the left side of the wedge for the earlier and later kickoff return. Brady also was the first teamer at this position on kickoff return during the pre-season.

The Pats run a 1-5-3-1 kickoff return, and have been running it for some time. One of the outside players in the front line, in this case Mel Mitchell, runs to the middle of the field, harassing who he can along the way, and throws an inside-out block on the backside safety, in this case Erik Coleman. This is the touchdown block because it opens the end of the "wall" the Pats are building down whichever side of the field the return is going to.

You can see in this picture that one frontline player, Heath Evans, is set back from the others. This is for onside kicks. Mitchell and Watson are the other "hands" members of the frontline, stationed at the ends of the line.

The wedge aims for the hash mark on the side the return is called to, and the returner runs out towards the numbers, a standard return scheme. In this case this return was called to the left. The first return (in the second quarter) was called right.


(Note: In the picture in this post, Mitchell is shown currently harassing Nugent. He blocks Coleman [to his right at the 40] shortly thereafter.)

The remaining five frontline players block inwards from left to right: Watson blocks in on inside contain player Tutts, Alexander blocks in on gunner Wright, Evans blocks on wedge buster Kassell, Mays blocks fellow buster Spencer, and Larry Izzo blocks gunner Smith. These are difficult open field blocks, and they don't slow down the coverage as much as they shift the coverage lanes away from the return.

The wedge, meanwhile, travels from right to left, towards the hash with the wall. The only player to the outside of the wall is outside contain player David Bowens. On the other side of the field, contain players Harris and McCareins are allowed to go unblocked. Willie Andrews, who leads Hobbs into the wedge, has his first responsibility to the backside; if either contain player is too close to the wedge, Andrews has to pick him up to stop them from chasing the play down. Otherwise, the return scheme gambles that Hobbs can beat backside contain around the wedge and up the other side of the field, eluding playside contain player Bowens.